But when the little clock on Charlie’s green-painted mantel shelf struck ten, the luck piece was Charlie’s and with it an overwhelming lien on the one-hundred-dollar bill. He put both in his pocket; “Remember this ain’t my fault; it was you that insisted,” he said, and handed Collinson four five-dollar bills as change. Old Bill, platonically interested, discovered that his cigar was sparkless, applied a match, and casually set forth his opinion. “Well, I guess that was about as poor a way of spendin’ eighty dollars as I ever saw, but it all goes to show there’s truth in the old motto that anything at all can happen in any poker game! That was a mighty nice hundred-dollar bill you had on you, Collie; but it’s like what Smithie said: a piece o’ money goes hoppin’ around from one person to another—_it_ don’t care!—and yours has gone and hopped to Charlie. The question is, Who’s it goin’ to hop to next?” He paused to laugh, glanced over the cards that had been dealt him, and concluded: “My guess is ’t some good-lookin’ woman’ll prob’ly get a pretty fair chunk o’ that hundred-dollar bill out o’ Charlie. Well, let’s settle down to the ole army game.” They settled down to it, and by twelve o’clock (the invariable closing hour of these pastimes in the old shack) Collinson had lost four dollars and thirty cents more. He was commiserated by his fellow gamesters as they put on their coats and overcoats, preparing to leave the hot little room. They shook their heads, laughed ruefully in sympathy, and told him he oughtn’t to carry hundred-dollar bills upon his person when he went out among friends. Old Bill made what is sometimes called an unfortunate remark. “Don’t worry about Collie,” he said jocosely. “That hundred-dollar bill prob’ly belonged to some rich client of his.” “What!” Collinson said, staring. “Never mind, Collie; I wasn’t in earnest,” the joker explained. “Of course I didn’t mean it.” “Well, you oughtn’t to say it,” Collinson protested. “People say a thing like that about a man in a joking way, but other people hear it sometimes and don’t know he’s joking, and a story gets started.” “My goodness, but you’re serious!” Old Bill exclaimed. “You look like you had a misery in your chest, as the rubes say; and I don’t blame you! Get on out in the fresh night air and you’ll feel better.”